atures, ruddy with his morning's drive. "Better
come with me for an afternoon spin farther up State, and a good dinner
at a place I know. Get you back by bedtime."

"There's nothing I'd like better, Rich," said Benson longingly; "but--I
can't leave the store. I have rather a short force of clerks--and on a
sunny day--"

"You'd sell more goods to-morrow," urged Richard, feeling increasingly
anxious to do something which might bring light into a face he had not
remembered as so sombre.

But Benson shook his head again. Afterward, in front of the store to
which the two had returned in the car, Richard could only give his
friend a warm grip of the hand and an urgent invitation to visit him in
the city.

"I suppose you come down often to buy goods," he suggested. "Or do you
send buyers? I don't know much about the conduct of business in a town
like this--or much about it at home, for that matter," he owned. "Though
I'm not sure I'm proud of my ignorance."

"It doesn't matter whether you know anything about it or not, of
course," said Benson, looking up at him with a queer expression of
wistfulness. "No, I'm my own buyer. And I don't buy of a great,
high-grade firm like yours; I go to a different class of fellows for my
stuff."

Richard drove on, thinking hard about Benson. What a pity for a fellow
of twenty-six or seven to look like that, careworn and weary. He
wondered whether it was the loss of his father and the probably
sorrowful atmosphere at home that accounted for the look in Benson's
eyes, or whether his business was not a particularly successful one. He
recalled that the one careless glance he had given the windows of
Benson's store had brought to his mind the fleeting impression that
village shopkeepers had not much art in the dressing of their windows as
a means of alluring the public.

As he drove on he felt in his pockets for a cigar and found his case
unexpectedly empty. He turned back to a drugstore, went in and supplied
himself from the best in stock--none too good for his fastidious taste.

"What's your best dry-goods shop here?" he inquired casually.

"Artwell & Chatford's the best--now," responded the druggist, glancing
across the street, where a sign bearing those names met the eye.
"Chaffee Brothers has run 'em a close second since Benson's dropped out
of the competition. Benson's used to be the best, but it's fallen way
behind. Look at Artwell's window display over there and see the reason,"